Fic: Incremental Acclimatization - Breaking In/Smallville, Cam Price/Lex Luthor, PG
Title: Incremental Acclimatization
Fandom(s): Breaking In/Smallville
Pairing: Cam Price/Lex Luthor
Rating: PG
Summary: For this prompt @ comment_fic, and sequel to this. 'Do evil geniuses' enemies have keys to their evil genius victims' houses?' Cam wondered hysterically, while also evaluating the defensive properties of the closest items available to him to use as weaponry (i.e. a stool, a cookie dish, one and a half chocolate chip cookies, and a crystal bowl full of ripe fruit that Cam would have to use all of his might to lift up high enough to use as a projectile.)
The hardest things to adjust to, in dating an evil genius a billionaire (Cam really needs to stop saying that other thing; he's relatively certain that Lex wouldn't appreciate Cam's advertising his "secret") are - oddly - the small things.
Being picked up on a regular basis by Lex's limo, riding in Lex's one-of-a-kind sports cars, sleeping in the mansion; Lex's pricey gifts... These are all big things that are maybe not as shocking because they're so big. They're not surprising; you picture the lifestyle of a guy like Lex Luthor, and you picture these things.
But only someone who's actually lived the lifestyle of a guy like Lex would know about the other things. The things that never cease to make Cam feel like the theme song to the Twilight Zone ought to be playing in the background.
Take, for example, the milk incident.
Cam was staying the night at Lex's castle in Smallville. He was not freaking out about the palatial bed he and Lex had finished mucking up a few hours earlier. He was not freaking out that he had to travel not one but two floors and three stairways to get from Lex's bedroom to the kitchen for a late night snack... He was only somewhat nervous about being mostly naked in a kitchen fancier than any restaurant he'd ever dined in, all hand-carved granite and marble and imported cookware you can't buy in a store. (And that only because of the one time Lex's father dropped by the mansion unannounced before Cam started wearing the robe Lex bought him for wandering around at night in.)
Cam hardly batted an eye at the cabinet Lex had had stocked with enough cookies, since Cam's last visit, to supply a corner grocery store (Cam made the happy mistake of telling Lex which cookies are his favorite; he's pretty sure Lex bought the companies that make them shortly thereafter.)
But then Cam found Lex's fridge sadly empty of milk to go along with his cookies. Which was no biggie - Cam just typed in 'milk' on the little keypad next to the fridge like Lex told him to do whenever he noticed something missing from the kitchen, then he fixed himself a plate of cookies and sat down at Lex's kitchen island to snack before heading back up to bed to cuddle next to his lover.
Cam had just bitten into the third of his four cookies when there came a knock at the kitchen door, the one that opens out to the Manor's exterior gardens.
Cam froze. Lex had instructed him on what to do if he ever came across someone in the castle who obviously wasn't supposed to be there. Namely, Cam was supposed to go and get Lex - or, if it would be quicker, lock himself in the panic room off of Lex's study and buzz Lex from there. And Cam was almost certain that no one was supposed to be knocking at the castle's kitchen door at four in the morning, without Lex's guards having called ahead to get them clearance...
But it's one thing to know that he's dating an evil genius... and quite another to really grasp the facts of that, and so Cam didn't run like the hounds of hell were upon him to get Lex, or to lock himself in Lex's panic room. (Really, he often thinks, it should tell him everything he needs to know about the wisdom of dating Lex Luthor that Lex has a panic room as sophisticated as he has, and that he felt the need to give Cam instructions on when and how to use it.) Instead, Cam sat there on his stool, clutching his half-eaten cookie dumbly, and wondering if evil geniuses' enemies knock before they attack, or if Hal and Earl in the guard station were just messing with him, or if Hal and Earl were dead and Cam was going to be next and if he ought to be regretting ever starting something with Lex - or, rather, letting Lex start something between them - in the first place (since Lex is clearly evil and probably has lots of enemies) despite the fact that he's sexy and funny and really very nice for all of the being-evil involved in his daily business practices...
By the time Lex's door opened ('Do evil geniuses' enemies have keys to their evil genius victims' houses?' Cam wondered hysterically, while also evaluating the defensive properties of the closest items available to him to use as weaponry - i.e. a stool, a cookie dish, one and a half chocolate chip cookies, and a crystal bowl full of ripe fruit that Cam would have to use all of his might to lift up high enough to use as a projectile) Cam was functionally catatonic with shock and indecision.
Which all worked out for the best, because if he had been able to act, Cam might have tossed Lex's expensive crystal bowl at kind Mrs. Frederickson's head as she walked into Lex's kitchen with the fresh milk she'd come to deliver. Turns out... Lex's keypad isn't some sort of electronic grocery list - it's a pager for his kitchen staff so that no guest in his home ever has to go without something for longer than the time it takes for Mrs. Frederickson or one of her staff members to respond to their requests.
Cam was too freaked out after Mrs. Frederickson left to actually drink the milk he had apparently woken her at four o'clock in the morning to procure. But he let her pour him a glass out of deference to the trouble she'd gone to for him and waited until she was gone to run upstairs and go back to bed.
Yeah, it's little things like that that really give Cam pause when he considers the surreal turn his love life has taken as of late.
"You know, you aren't beholden to anything, Cameron," Lex tells him one night, obviously having guessed where Cam's mind has been, after a quiet dinner, as they sit in front of Lex's fireplace. "If you've decided that this is all a bit much for you, I'll understand. I won't pretend not to be disappointed... Or that I wouldn't rather continue what we have going. But I'll understand. God knows, being involved with a Luthor isn't to everyone's tastes."
It hasn't been to the tastes of far too many people that Lex would have liked to continue seeing, Cam reads in the sadness and caution in Lex's eyes. And something about the easy way Lex is smiling (which somehow doesn't make it look like this conversation is easy for Lex at all) makes Cam's stomach twist and his heart thump, and at last Cam is aware of the most dangerous thing in dating a billionaire an evil genius.
You picture dating a guy like Lex Luthor... with his panic rooms and his secret labs and his enemies, and you don't necessarily picture yourself falling in love with him. Not far enough that you wouldn't still walk away given a good scare and a proper opportunity.
But, 'Holy shit,' Cam realizes.... He has.
"Well... I'm not everyone," Cam finds himself saying. Don't sweat the small stuff, right?
And learning how not to swoon like a big girl when Lex blinds him with a huge, bright grin... the rare, sincere kind the paparazzi only wish they could catch on Lex's face... becomes the nicest adjustment Cam's ever had to make.
[end.]
Fandom(s): Breaking In/Smallville
Pairing: Cam Price/Lex Luthor
Rating: PG
Summary: For this prompt @ comment_fic, and sequel to this. 'Do evil geniuses' enemies have keys to their evil genius victims' houses?' Cam wondered hysterically, while also evaluating the defensive properties of the closest items available to him to use as weaponry (i.e. a stool, a cookie dish, one and a half chocolate chip cookies, and a crystal bowl full of ripe fruit that Cam would have to use all of his might to lift up high enough to use as a projectile.)
The hardest things to adjust to, in dating an evil genius a billionaire (Cam really needs to stop saying that other thing; he's relatively certain that Lex wouldn't appreciate Cam's advertising his "secret") are - oddly - the small things.
Being picked up on a regular basis by Lex's limo, riding in Lex's one-of-a-kind sports cars, sleeping in the mansion; Lex's pricey gifts... These are all big things that are maybe not as shocking because they're so big. They're not surprising; you picture the lifestyle of a guy like Lex Luthor, and you picture these things.
But only someone who's actually lived the lifestyle of a guy like Lex would know about the other things. The things that never cease to make Cam feel like the theme song to the Twilight Zone ought to be playing in the background.
Take, for example, the milk incident.
Cam was staying the night at Lex's castle in Smallville. He was not freaking out about the palatial bed he and Lex had finished mucking up a few hours earlier. He was not freaking out that he had to travel not one but two floors and three stairways to get from Lex's bedroom to the kitchen for a late night snack... He was only somewhat nervous about being mostly naked in a kitchen fancier than any restaurant he'd ever dined in, all hand-carved granite and marble and imported cookware you can't buy in a store. (And that only because of the one time Lex's father dropped by the mansion unannounced before Cam started wearing the robe Lex bought him for wandering around at night in.)
Cam hardly batted an eye at the cabinet Lex had had stocked with enough cookies, since Cam's last visit, to supply a corner grocery store (Cam made the happy mistake of telling Lex which cookies are his favorite; he's pretty sure Lex bought the companies that make them shortly thereafter.)
But then Cam found Lex's fridge sadly empty of milk to go along with his cookies. Which was no biggie - Cam just typed in 'milk' on the little keypad next to the fridge like Lex told him to do whenever he noticed something missing from the kitchen, then he fixed himself a plate of cookies and sat down at Lex's kitchen island to snack before heading back up to bed to cuddle next to his lover.
Cam had just bitten into the third of his four cookies when there came a knock at the kitchen door, the one that opens out to the Manor's exterior gardens.
Cam froze. Lex had instructed him on what to do if he ever came across someone in the castle who obviously wasn't supposed to be there. Namely, Cam was supposed to go and get Lex - or, if it would be quicker, lock himself in the panic room off of Lex's study and buzz Lex from there. And Cam was almost certain that no one was supposed to be knocking at the castle's kitchen door at four in the morning, without Lex's guards having called ahead to get them clearance...
But it's one thing to know that he's dating an evil genius... and quite another to really grasp the facts of that, and so Cam didn't run like the hounds of hell were upon him to get Lex, or to lock himself in Lex's panic room. (Really, he often thinks, it should tell him everything he needs to know about the wisdom of dating Lex Luthor that Lex has a panic room as sophisticated as he has, and that he felt the need to give Cam instructions on when and how to use it.) Instead, Cam sat there on his stool, clutching his half-eaten cookie dumbly, and wondering if evil geniuses' enemies knock before they attack, or if Hal and Earl in the guard station were just messing with him, or if Hal and Earl were dead and Cam was going to be next and if he ought to be regretting ever starting something with Lex - or, rather, letting Lex start something between them - in the first place (since Lex is clearly evil and probably has lots of enemies) despite the fact that he's sexy and funny and really very nice for all of the being-evil involved in his daily business practices...
By the time Lex's door opened ('Do evil geniuses' enemies have keys to their evil genius victims' houses?' Cam wondered hysterically, while also evaluating the defensive properties of the closest items available to him to use as weaponry - i.e. a stool, a cookie dish, one and a half chocolate chip cookies, and a crystal bowl full of ripe fruit that Cam would have to use all of his might to lift up high enough to use as a projectile) Cam was functionally catatonic with shock and indecision.
Which all worked out for the best, because if he had been able to act, Cam might have tossed Lex's expensive crystal bowl at kind Mrs. Frederickson's head as she walked into Lex's kitchen with the fresh milk she'd come to deliver. Turns out... Lex's keypad isn't some sort of electronic grocery list - it's a pager for his kitchen staff so that no guest in his home ever has to go without something for longer than the time it takes for Mrs. Frederickson or one of her staff members to respond to their requests.
Cam was too freaked out after Mrs. Frederickson left to actually drink the milk he had apparently woken her at four o'clock in the morning to procure. But he let her pour him a glass out of deference to the trouble she'd gone to for him and waited until she was gone to run upstairs and go back to bed.
Yeah, it's little things like that that really give Cam pause when he considers the surreal turn his love life has taken as of late.
"You know, you aren't beholden to anything, Cameron," Lex tells him one night, obviously having guessed where Cam's mind has been, after a quiet dinner, as they sit in front of Lex's fireplace. "If you've decided that this is all a bit much for you, I'll understand. I won't pretend not to be disappointed... Or that I wouldn't rather continue what we have going. But I'll understand. God knows, being involved with a Luthor isn't to everyone's tastes."
It hasn't been to the tastes of far too many people that Lex would have liked to continue seeing, Cam reads in the sadness and caution in Lex's eyes. And something about the easy way Lex is smiling (which somehow doesn't make it look like this conversation is easy for Lex at all) makes Cam's stomach twist and his heart thump, and at last Cam is aware of the most dangerous thing in dating a billionaire an evil genius.
You picture dating a guy like Lex Luthor... with his panic rooms and his secret labs and his enemies, and you don't necessarily picture yourself falling in love with him. Not far enough that you wouldn't still walk away given a good scare and a proper opportunity.
But, 'Holy shit,' Cam realizes.... He has.
"Well... I'm not everyone," Cam finds himself saying. Don't sweat the small stuff, right?
And learning how not to swoon like a big girl when Lex blinds him with a huge, bright grin... the rare, sincere kind the paparazzi only wish they could catch on Lex's face... becomes the nicest adjustment Cam's ever had to make.
[end.]